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Other Food Allergies

Are chemicals to blame for food allergies?

By Aaron Turpen, February 25, 2014

Food allergies are becoming more and more common in the United States, and many things have been proposed as the cause.

One expert, Dr. Claudia Miller, proposed a new idea in 1996 that suggests the chemicals used to process and make our foods, chemicals which are generally unregulated and untested, may be to blame for some, if not most, food allergies.

Research controversial but compelling

Miller's research is often cited by other researchers as being an environmental rather than physical phenomenon in terms of the cause of food allergies. Miller, a researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center, continues her research, though many in the scientific community believe her hypothesis has one major flaw.

It's too vague and seems to be looking at the problem from the wrong timing perspective, they say. It also doesn't always delineate between food intolerance and food allergies.

Still, for many, Miller's hypothesis and research are compelling. With thousands of largely unregulated chemicals being used to process foods and with many untested chemicals being added to foods (because their constituent parts are proven safe individually), the idea that these could be contributing or even causing food allergies is intriguing.